Smart Connected Classrooms

Enhancing Education Through Connectivity:
The Smart Connected Classrooms pilot project

About the project

To bridge the digital divide and modernise education systems to match the needs of the digital era, the pilot project Smart Connected Classrooms has been launched in Europe. Funded by a grant from Qualcomm Incorporated, through its Qualcomm® Wireless Reach™ Initiative, and supported by the Scientix® STEM Alliance, an initiative of European Schoolnet (EUN), this innovative pilot is set to revolutionize the way teachers and students engage in the learning process.

Unfolding across two phases, the project is researching the impact of digital technologies on learning patterns and classroom dynamics, as well as advancing recommendations for the effective integration of digital tools in the classroom.

Phase 1: The Education-As-A-Service set

In its first phase, running in the school year 2022/23, five classrooms in two pilot schools, one in Spain and one in Portugal, have been equipped with always-connected personal computers and the Qualcomm® Education-as-a-Service (EaaS) set, which encompasses various hardware and software solutions, including a Smart Panel from OneScreen, an eGlass, a wireless teaching station, among others.

Outcomes of Phase 1

Engaging 5 teachers and 128 students, this initial phase yielded substantial findings. If you want to know more about the projects’ outcomes, download the final evaluation report and listen to teachers’ testimonies in the accompanying video.

Phase 2: Virtual Reality

Implemented during the 2023–2024 academic year, this second phase of the project focused on examining the impact of VR on teaching and learning, engaging 37 teachers and 607 students across two schools in Spain and Portugal. The findings highlight a promising future for VR in education, offering valuable insights for educators, policymakers, and technology developers. You can access the report here.

Phase 3: Virtual Reality in Science Education

The Smart Connected Classrooms project is entering its third phase during the 2024/25 academic year, focusing on the impact of virtual reality (VR) on 5th-grade students' science learning. This phase features a quasi-experimental study, comparing the outcomes of students learning with VR to those not using VR. The study involves 13 teachers and 520 students across Spain, with four treatment schools using VR and three control schools not using VR.

EUROPEAN SCHOOLNET’S PILOT METHODOLOGY

EUN has been running validation pilots for more than 20 years, enabling STEM Alliance Partners to liaise with our MoEs to test innovation solutions with pilot schools. The goal of these pilots, based on specific methodologies and targeted approaches, is to validate technologies by testing, refining and finally mainstreaming them via professional development opportunities or dissemination campaigns, all through a carefully thought and widely proved research protocol.

“We are pleased to collaborate with Qualcomm to bring innovative solutions to schools across Europe. With this project, we want to help students and teachers in primary and secondary education to experience new teaching and learning models and to explore the impact of new technologies in the classroom.”
Marc Durando, European Schoolnet Executive Director